Hope flickers amidst darkness of war

By Faraza Farook

That was the theme behind "Ashoka", an intercultural mime performance by the Centre for Performing Arts earlier this month. Everything seemed real - from the sounds of gunfire and the bombs, scenes so familiar, even in the city. 

The play depicted the peaceful environment of a nation shattered by war and the pain and destruction it brings, leading the audience to make a new pledge for peace.

With a strong belief that cultural activities and creative arts are a powerful means of building bridges of mutual understanding, respect and friendship, the CPA conducts programmes that are centred round war and peace.

"The CPA aims at building cultural bridges among various communities through the arts," says Fr. N. Maria Saveri, the brains behind this organisation. Founded in 1965 in Jaffna, with the support of around 30 people, the CPA was a small drama group that developed into a broad-based cultural group in the late 1980s.

The organisation, a haven for many youth and children suffering the harsh realities of war, uses theatre and therapeutic arts, to help them overcome the trauma of war. The Centre trains its members and opens opportunities to discover their talents.

A unique feature in the programmes organised by the CPA is that it strives hard to mix different ethnic groups. "Sinhala members are asked to perform to Tamil music and a Tamil group to dance to the tunes of a Sinhala song," Fr. Saveri explains.

Behind his inspiration to build this organisation, were personal encounters and stories of strife by victims of war both here and abroad. "When Jaffna was bombed, I saw it as an opportunity for more than destruction," Fr. Saveri said, adding a Chinese proverb, "better light a small candle than curse the darkness".

The organisation's main funding comes from UNICEF and friends while assistance is also received from foreign diplomatic missions. But for the dedication of its members, the centre would crumble. Its employees are paid a pittance and with expansion, the centre is in need of more funds. After over 35 years of service, today centres have been formed in many countries to reach to a wider audience. Accordingly, CPA has parallel centres in London, the U.S., France, Italy, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, South India, Singapore, Australia and Canada where the International Secretariat is also located.

Leafing through the tea trade

By Sharm de Alwis

In the selective audience were a host of Trinitians from several walks of life and others whom I could not identify, and of course, their wives.

Dr. Modder introduced Mr. Ratwatte, Chairman of the Tea Board as a member of a family which has given succour to the country. He said that 65% of the country's income is from the tea trade and that 66% of the country's food bill is met by the tea industry which exports 305.8 million tons of tea annually. The tea industry is a buffer not only to take the shocks off the rich but also off the poor.

He dwelt on Dr. Upatissa Pethiyagoda of worldwide fame whose most recent achievements were as Ambassador in Rome and the FAO, now harnessing his mind-energy as Director of the Coconut Research Board.

I have known more of Dr. Kingsley de Alwis, my classmate, than what Dr. Modder could tell us but brevity being the call of the column he was formerly the Senior Advisor to the FAO, Rome.

Dr. Modder traced his links with Dr. Breckenridge to Bambalapitiya's Lion House where the budding intellentgentsia would meet over an affordable cup of tea and as undergrads discuss men and matters.

Dr. Modder enthused that "The Hills of Paradise" is a distillation of 30 years of Dr. Breckenridge's experience in the tea industry. A medical doctor by profession, he had been fascinated by the whole business of growing tea and had collected information on all matters. He empathised when he had to make his frequent visits to the line rooms. And at the higher level, he met his colleagues at Trinity whose special interest at that time was planting.

Dr. Modder revealed a more inconsistent feature of his ethos when he spoke of the splendour of the view of "twenty Madonnas, motionless in pure poetry, plucking tea buds". But SNB, he said, looked at statistics and wove the fabric from the threads of figures. "It is a hypothesis that unifies and it is elevated from the theory. It gives the reason."

Dr. Modder expressed gratitude not only to the British who opened up the plantations, but to the Indian Tamil labour force that made the industry viable at a time when the Kandyan peasantry steadfastly refused to work on the grounds that they were displaced and that the rich red soil was being subjected to erosion.

The coffee plantations took a severe beating from two diseases and replacement had to be found. James Taylor in 1876 introduced tea to the country.

Having traced the origins, Dr. Modder said that "The Hills of Paradise" could be read at several levels; there is a plethora of ideas for novelists, information for the medics and for the politicians as well as the trade unionists. It is pertinent to mention that trade union activities started in the tea estates.

Dr. Pethiyagoda thanked Dr. Modder for the introduction which made matters easy for him and dwelt briefly on the eminent and illustrious Breckenridges who had as teachers fed the country with noble manhood.

The 30-year foetus has seen the light of day, he said and it is a masterly presentation. He had encountered in the reading the people he had known and warm memories had been re-kindled.

Dr. Kingsley de Alwis had studied with Dr. Breckenridge at Trinity and so it had been easy to have followed the thinking right through the narrative. "He has written from the ethos of his own life" and referred to Sir James Emmerson who has stated that no nation, old or young, had as many books written on her as Ceylon.

"There are no dry statistics in this book. It brings alive the colourful British immigrants." He re-iterated what Dr. Modder had said and hoped that Dr. Breckenridge would write more with his lucid style.

Dr. Breckenridge said that he had been diffident about the project and had given the manuscript to the earlier three speakers to double check on his competence.

He traced his life as a medical officer who had not been over-ambitious. He had got into the medical officers' sphere, the right place, no doubt, but at the wrong time. After 25 years he is wiser now. 

He had from the beginning of his life been interested in the pastoral life with the keen bonding of the village and the temple. 

Whilst practising preventive medicine in remote areas such as Mawanella he was able to visit Kandyan villagers, rock temples and make close observations of malaria and migratory workers.

He spoke of his early days as a doctor when he was given a desk and chair but no one knew what work he had to do. Because of the British fetish for documents he was able to read copiously and even chanced on old notes of Dr. Hoghill. 

He collected data and found them fascinating especially because he himself was working on the estate lines at the time. Here he was from the urban sector, having an over-view of the peasantry.

Having studied psychology in his later years, he had observed that all migrations follow a certain pattern. He spoke of Henry Wickham who had stolen rubber seeds from the Brazilians and had planted them at Henerakgoda Gardens in Gampaha. He had also sent some seeds to Malaysia.

Sir Edward Barnes was spoken of glowingly. "A left over from the Napoleonic Wars, he it was who built roads." The barter economy of the Kandyan peasantry was traced and he urged, "Read it for yourself". Colombo was considered a modern city at the turn of the century. He spoke of the trade rivalries that erupted in 1912.

Mr. Clifford Ratwatte, the chief guest, said that after a stint in the agricultural institute he got immersed in tea. 

He traced the beginning and the progress of tea and acknowledged the part played by the British in opening out the estates, building roads and railways.

Jazz, funk and pop

The classically-trained pianist (who studied with several teachers including Mordecai Shehori, a disciple of Horowitz, and Claude-France Journes among others) graduated from Berklee College of Music (Bachelor of Music) in Boston and from Manhattan School of Music (Master of Music) in New York City.

Despite his formal studies, Cornelius regards himself as self-taught and approaches music as an intuitive traveller seeking its ultimate source.

This Steinway Artist was one of five finalists at the Great American Jazz Piano Competition '95 and was selected for the Concours International de Piano Jazz Martial Solal '89 in Paris.

He has received many prizes and awards, including the Berklee College of Music's Jazz-Performance-Award '94, Manhattan School of Music's President's Award '95 and '96 and Germany's Scala-Award '99 for Artist of the Year.

He has performed at some of the most important venues and music festivals, including the Blue Note Jazz Club, Steinway Hall and the Knitting Factory in New York, the Montreux Jazz Festival, Munich Philharmonic Hall, Theatre des Halles in Paris, Fondacion Miro in Barcelona and the Centro de las Artes in Mexico City.

His last CD "Scoop" (ACT) features a cast of musicians from Africa, South America, the Caribbean and New York. It was Germany's 5th best-selling jazz CD in 1998 according to WOM's annual charts and received rave reviews all over the world.

Cornelius calls his music BlackMudSound - a mixture of world-afro-jazz-funk and pop.

Melodies that never die

"Songs my mother taught me" presented by The Merry An Singers and The Peter Prins Combo will go on the boards at the Lionel Wendt Theatre on October 5, 6 and 7 at 7.15 p.m. A matinee show will be held on October 7 at 11.00 a.m.

Peter Prins has played dance music at many leading hotels and is one of those rare musicians who is capable of "reading his audience" whilst bringing changes to the music. 

Mary Anne David started as a performer playing dance music on a piano, went on to becoming a leading classical soprano and took to teaching vocal music. With her 40 years of immersion in various forms of vocal music she "knows her onions" and has a selection, which cannot but help please any listener.

"Ain't she sweet", "Sucu Sucu", "Thanks for the mem-ory", "St. Louis Blues", "Carry me back to old Virginny", "Pennies from heaven", "Blue Skies", "Somewhere over the rainbow", "Daddy's little girl", the Beatles', and "Roll out the barrel" are just a small selection of the kind of music in store for you. 

'Butterflies' before CHOGM

The Butterflies Theatre Group, a mix of able, disabled, disadvantaged and displaced cast of 42, set up and nurtured by the Sunera Foundation, will go on stage with 'Flowers will always bloom', the tragic and moving story of Sri Lanka's recent history, before world leaders gathered in Australia for the Commonwealth meeting.

"Of all the cultural groups invited, the Butterflies are the only ones who will give the gala performance on October 7 for the delegates. This was by special invitation from the Commonwealth Secretary-General," said Sunera Foundation's Ms. Sunethra Bandaranaike, who 'masterminded' this new concept of integrated theatre along with Wolfgang Stange of the London-based AMICI Dance Theatre Company. 

They will hold three performances on October 6, 7 and 8, with the highlight being the middle one. Taking the opportunity, they will also have three workshops with the well-established Australian group, Access Arts, which has been working with the disabled for 16 years. 

'Flowers will always bloom' is directed by Stange along with Sri Lankan Rohana Deva Perera. The cast will be complemented by the prima donnas of local dance, Upeka and Khema. This is the Butterflies' second foray into foreign lands, with their debut being in London in May to rave reviews.

Meanwhile, the Butterflies will once again hold captive the Sri Lankan audience on December 18 and 19, when they stand under the spotlight at the Bishop's College auditorium.

Big Lucy - two tenors and room to spare

There are at least two Pavarottis, and the uncharitable might remark that there is plenty of room for them. He is a hefty man, and "Big Lucy", the affectionate nickname coined for him at the Royal Opera House in the 1980s, says it all.

First there is the Pavarotti who is one of the great singers of the day and has been for 40 years. This Pavarotti will appear at Covent Garden next year as Cavaradossi in Tosca. Then there is Pavarotti the pop star, who has been selling out huge concerts for 20 years, and has more of the same slated up to 2005. In this guise he appeared at a picnic in Hyde Park in July, with a little help from Russell Watson and Charlotte Church.

Perhaps one should add Pavarotti the astute businessman, though just how astute must be left to the judgment of the authorities in Italy, where, he is under investigation for little problems with tax. 

There is also Pavarotti the horse lover and, perhaps most mysterious of all, Pavarotti the sex symbol. He certainly doesn't look like Mick Jagger, yet you can't sustain pop-star mass appeal for 20 years without some kind of extra-musical attraction. In which respect one should recall that the old, slimline Pavarotti who made his debut in Reggio Emilia in 1961 was an enthusiastic amateur footballer and had the looks of the classic Latin lover of the time.

Pavarotti the great singer is both fairly easy and utterly impossible to pin down. The appeal of the voice is very personal and unanalysable, but few could disagree that the sound he makes is incredibly beautiful, golden, liquid, glowing as much as shining. There has not been such a purely beautiful tenor voice since Gigli.

But that is not in itself enough, His diction is superb: every word he sings is clearly enunciated without ever disturbing a pure stream of legato line that is, again, almost unique. He communicates as much through language as through sound, or through musical shape — and the man is made of music.

Pavarotti as a creature of the stage is another matter. He is, perhaps, an instinctive performer: his most successful roles are those that echo his personality. A certain romantic ardour makes him a natural Rodolfo in Boheme, the role in which he made his Covent Garden debut in 1963, and well suited to most other Puccini tenor roles: his recording of Turandot remains the best, and his version of Nessun dorma for the 1990 World Cup had to mark a turning point in his career, as well as that of two other tenors.

His Italianate ebullience is perfect for the Duke of Mantua. A sometimes self-deprecating sense of humour and peasant slyness make him an ideal Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore. There is an elegance to the man ideal for the tenor lead in Un ballo in maschera and elegance combined with ardour make him memorable in Donizetti's serious operas. Mention of such roles also glves a clue to his extraordinary vocal longevity. Pavarotti, 65, has always known what to sing, when, and what not.

But one awaits next year's Cavaradossi at the Garden with a certain nervousness. Physical problems with his knees have limited his mobility on stage, and for a good ten years, productions have had to take this into account. For a start no stairs, I know the feeling, and plenty of chairs strategically placed on stage. Extreme flexibility is required from colleagues: last time he sang Ballo at Covent Garden he decided to nip off for a drink of water in the middle of the love duet, leaving the soprano alone on stage and looking extremely tense. 

Would he return? He did, and luckily the next scene required a desk, so carafe and glass were legitimately in place. 

The Garden's famous Zeffirelli production of Tosca was cleverly adapted for him last time round, and his discreet, slow-motion slide down a convenient wall when shot in the final scene became something of a collector's item.

A recent broadcast of Aida from the New York Met was heart-warming and a touch alarming. I hadn't checked the cast list, but it needed only a couple of lines with those clicking consonants to know that this was Big Lucy. Yet there was also a perceptible thinning out of the tone, a loss of the inimitable Pavarotti glow, to remind us that he can't go on for ever. So maybe next year will be the last that Londoners see of him on stage.

For the foreseeable future there is, however, no end in sight for Pavarotti the pop star, which is done with such utter showbiz professionalism.

As Gypsy Rose Lee's mother rightly remarked, "You gotta have a gimmick, and Pavarotti's white handkerchief is one of the most amiable there is.

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